Regulation about FTE Count and Projects Assessment

This page presents the FTE count and Project Assessment rules as agreed by the Steering Board (SB) in December 2021 for R&D projects which integration is not yet integrated in Geant4 work plan.

FTE Count

For Geant4 members, their FTE invested in the R&D Task Force (R&D TF) are accounted in this Task Force and are part of the yearly census.

Externals may declare their FTE to the R&D TF too, these counts being kept separately from the Geant4 members one.

Assessment of R&D projects

It is proposed that R&D projects are assessed on a regular basis, according to the following procedure:

• Spokesperson, deputy and R&D TF coordinator agrees on what proposals to assess, and at what period of time
  • The SB is informed at least one month before the assessment date
  • It can react and iterate if needed
  • A project is assessed each 12 to 18 months
• R&D TF coordinator proposes an Assessment Team to the SB
  • The team must be agreed by the SB at least two weeks before the assessment
    • If not the case, the assessment is postponed up to reaching an agreement on the Assessment Team, the assessment starting at least two weeks after the agreement date
  • The team is made of 5 to 8 members, internal or external to Geant4
  • The team members are not members of the assessed project
  • The SB is informed at least one month before the assessment, it endorses the proposed team within two weeks
    • It can react and iterate if needed
    • No reaction within two weeks is taken as approval
    • If iteration is requested, the assessment is postponed as said in above first bullet
  • The R&D TF coordinator is part and chair of the team by default
    • In case of conflict of interest, the TF coordinator is not part of the team, a chair is proposed by the team and endorsed by the SB
• At least one week before the assessment, the assessed project provides to the Assessment Team and SB:
  • A document describing the project
  • A summary (<= 5 pages) of the project status and key points : achievements, findings, difficulties, changes of approach, plans…
  • In these documents, demonstration, with possible numbers and plots, should be targeted
• The assessment consists in a presentation + discussion + report
  • The Assessment Team attends and drives the discussion
  • The project team attends
  • Any interested SB member can attend too
  • Within two weeks, the Assessment Team establishes a report (~2 pages) and submit it to the SB for iteration and approval
  • Together with the report, the Assessment Team establishes and submits to the SB a summary list of key points (few bullet lines) for iteration and approval
• Publicity of report
  • The SB, Assessment Team and project team have access to the report
  • The report is not published on the web by default
  • The report can be given to anyone making the request, informing the Assessment Team and project team of that request
  • The project team is free to publish the report on the web
  • The summary list of key points is put on the web